Blood and Moon Dew
by AppropriationGirl
Summary: Luna wasn't always strange. She didn't see Nargles or Wrackspurts everywhere, just the plain, simple world filled with books and logic. But her mother's Wolfsbane Potion spikes her curiosity-and leads to her transformation of the odd Luna Lovegood.
1. Chapter 1

Luna Lovegood was the most practical girl there was.

When she saw her father working diligently at the magical copiers, she took it upon herself to make breakfast for him, complete with sunny-side up eggs and toast. When she saw her mother frowning at the potion she had just created, knowing she would spend ages to resolve the potion's trickery, she grabbed a broom and started sweeping the Lovegood tower, up and down the steps until she had found every speck of dust hiding in the corners. When she saw she had no household chores left to do, Luna settled down comfortably with a book, tilting her head back against the window sill until she had the perfect balance between cold and warm—because, after all, the tower was always cozy and outside was always blistering with storms. Everything was perfect, completely silent and still with only the _hum-hum_ of the magical copier and the _blurp! _of the newest potion every so often breaking the silence. But Luna liked that, and that was all there was to it in the odd little household far off in the countryside.

Luna was much smarter than anyone she knew. She knew that because she had already fashioned a thesis on the evils of Wolfsbane Potion: Whoever drank it would become so emasculated against its effects, so dependent. She had developed a theory on Arithmancy's latest problem: how to solve pi divided by zero, and she knew it was correct because, well, she had thought of it. (The solution lay beneath her bed locked up in her Moke Super Pouch QX31.) Her schoolbooks for Hogwarts—and she _was _going to Hogwarts, even if she was only nine years old now and hadn't received her acceptance letter—had already been read up to seventh year, tucked away in the trunk filled with strange spells. If she didn't know any better, she would say she was prepared, practical, and prime for a new adventure. The 3 P's.

She sighed and set down her book down, _Merpeople: A Comprehensive Guide to Their Language and Customs_ by Dylan Marwood. It was quite an interesting read, to be honest; she hadn't known there were merpeople in the lake at Hogwarts. But Marwood's version seemed to be biased against the merpeople, having been nearly drowned in a merpeople community in Finland once, and Luna couldn't stand reading over the small quips such as "Merpeople are generally horrible at greeting outsiders" and "Merpeople do not favor sirens' company due to their loud shrieking sounds," especially when Luna had already met a mermaid once down by the stream and had a pleasant afternoon conversation.

So Luna swept her skinny legs from the sill and dropped the three feet to the ground, wincing at the slight pains in her thigh as she fell from the tall height. While her knees had repaired themselves from Mum's last experiment (it had caused her legs to vanish and reappear at will), she hadn't quite gotten over the effects of where her legs had reattached to the rest of her body. It kept a kind of diluted sense of touch and however long Luna spent trying to resolve this issue, she couldn't. Not, at least, without her mum's help…who was right now in the basement of the tower trying to create the Wolfsbane Potion she still hadn't yet completed.

Hobbling down the steps of the crooked stairwell, Luna made her way down one, two, three flights of stairs before hitting the first floor landing where Xenophilius Lovegood sat tinkering with his toy, the magical copier. He prodded the side of it twice, hit the lever, and waited as the machine hummed and went _clank_, whistling as he did so.

"Dad, are you sure we shouldn't get another copier?" Luna asked quietly, startling Xenophilius who proceeded to toss all his papers up into the air with a shout. "It's not exactly the sort of newer magic that wizards have these days. I'm sure even Muggles have something more—actually, I'm quite sure Muggles have _their _own version of a copier."

"Luna, darling," Xenophilius said, regaining control of his facial expression. He wiped his ink-stained hands on his shirt, panting slightly from the surprise, and bent down to retrieve his papers, still speaking to his daughter. "Could you, perhaps, come in a bit louder before starting up a conversation? It might help prevent my future breakdown." He wiped a sweaty palm across his forhead, smearing a small bit of leftover ink across his face before muttering underneath his breath, "And a good old scream could go along with that."

Luna moved forward to help him. "Sorry, Dad, I thought you heard me from the steps. The stairs are so rickety after all. It's, well, it's a bit distracting to say the least. I would have thought you heard at least something move."

"Distracting?" Xenophilius said, surprised once more. He twisted around to look at Luna. "It's the charm of the Lovegood household to have small sounds and appreciate them, darling. We wouldn't be able to live any other way! Imagine a house without the small hums and bells and whistles we have here! It'd be far too silent for my tastes. Besides, Hogwarts has better staircases than our home, they've got _gravitationally oriented stairwells_, and you do certainly want to go to Hogwarts, don't you? And those staircases are most certainly noisy, just like all things."

He held up a piece of paper from the stack he had just collected. "See here, Luna? I'm—"

"I'm seeing."

"—going to show you an old trick."

Luna rolled her eyes. She had seen this trick done many times in the past, and it wasn't too horribly entertaining. Her father would simply roll up the paper, tap his wand, and unfold the paper with a loud bang. Patiently she sat on her knees, wondering if her dad had ever realized he had repeated this trick so often that even Luna herself could recreate it even without a magic wand, because, of course, she wasn't allowed one yet.

Xenophilius rolled up the paper, tapped his wand, and unfolded the paper with a very loud "BANG!"

To be polite, Luna clapped her hands.

Xenophilius mock bowed. "Thank you, thank you!" He smiled at his daughter who lowered her hands and was waiting for the next step. "Now, do you understand the importance of sound? Good." Without waiting for her answer, he rambled on: "Shall we finish the headline for today? I've got a good one."

Curiously, Luna stood up, not at all bothered by her father's ignorance of her true answer, and squinted at the miniscule print. It read:

DRACO MALFOY GETS LARRY POTTER JAILED

Luna raised an eyebrow at her father. "Is this some sort of joke? Draco Malfoy such a tool, and I'm sure Larry wouldn't be too fond of your using of his former last name. After all, the Potters are famous for a much different reason, and Larry's not really a part of the lineage, just has the name. I'd be surprised if you don't go to the Wizengamot for this."

"Don't be silly, my darling Luna!" Xenophilius exclaimed. "The Wizengamot is only for criminal trials, not for mere appropriation cases!" He spun around gleefully, arms outstretched. "We'll have our best report yet! Peoples upon peoples will read _The Quibbler_, and we'll finally have our first fan base with this headline!"

"Dad, I don't think printing rumors will help your newspaper at all," Luna protested. It'd been a while since the neighboring kids had mocked her for her father's occupation and she by no means wanted it to start up again. "It's just going to be same again, just like the Evans' story you published. Remember what happened? Mr. Evans came down waving his wand angrily and we all had boils for a week!"

"But my darling Pandora solved that problem! We only waited a week before my lovely-and-genius wife fixed our 'little' problem!"

"And the Verres?"

"Pish posh, my Luna, they were completely unharmed! And besides, they _had _been hiding mandrakes and using them on the Muggle schoolboys and girls!"

Luna sighed. There was no point in explaining to an adult such as Xenophilius. It was hopeless. _Hopeless_.

She turned around and let her father continue tinkering with his toy.

"Mum?"

Downstairs at the lower level of the Lovegood tower potions bubbled, dripping asphodel and moon dew onto the already-splattered pavement. Pandora Lovegood's eyes grew in size as she examined her latest brew through a magnifying glass, amplifying the silvery-grey specks that Luna found in her own eyes. A tiny drop of aconite and the froth doubled in size.

"Mum."

This time Pandora looked up, still frowning at the potion hissing clouds of deep blue smoke. When she saw Luna, her face lit up wonderfully, easing the tensions in her face.

"Darling Luna! I never see you down here anymore!"

She ran up and hugged her daughter, who promptly wrenched herself backwards to avoid the aconite staining her pants which would lead to an unplanned death in her own home. Carefully, and with a bit of disgust, Luna took a towel with only a small yellow stain in the corner and wiped the eerie blue-shaded ingredient off her clothes. Then she looked up and screamed.

"MUM! Don't scare me like that, your glasses are terrifying!" Luna jumped backwards, breathing heavily. Her fingers barely avoided the greyish muck that she presumed to be a bad potion.

Pandora frowned, rubbing the bridge of her nose with her gloved hand. Luna noticed it still had a yellow stain. _Probably honeywater…or spider pus_. She tried to avoid retching up her breakfast.

Her mother glanced at her, noticing her disdainful expression. Quickly she pulled off her gloves, setting them down next to the boiling potion before reaching out to touch Luna's face affectionately. "Darling, what is it? You never come down unless you have a problem. Do you need more tonic for your legs?"

"No," Luna mumbled, face flushing. She didn't realize that she only came down to visit her mother when she had a problem. It was rather embarrassing, in fact, to note that she had neglected her duties as a daughter. _Not practical at all._ "I just wanted to see if you had thought about my thesis on your Wolfsbane Potion."

"Darling Luna." For a moment, Pandora had a faraway look in her eyes. "It's a horrible thing to become a werewolf, you know. There isn't much we can do to help—the effects at least. All I want is to keep them safe. Safe, darling."

Luna's mouth pressed tightly. There it was again, Pandora's lunacy. It only came out every once in a while—and though she knew her mother was a genius, it was still heartbreaking to note the times where she wasn't normal, wasn't sane. Luna had thought long and hard about the potion's effects…So why couldn't her mother see that? The craziness would lead her straight down into the hands of bloodthirsty wolf-men who would scream at her and claw at her until she gave in, handing over batches of this potion over and over again in an endless cycle.

But what use was it to say anything?

Pandora turned around, still in her dreamlike state, and absentmindedly picked up a vial of clear liquid. She shook it slightly before pouring it into the blue frothing cauldron. Luna narrowed her eyes at this. Clear liquid…was that horklump juice? Or syrup of moonflower? She couldn't tell.

"Mum…are you sure you're adding in the right ingredients?" Luna asked nervously, fidgeting slightly. She wanted to move closer to examine the clear liquid and the now violently-shaded indigo potion but she didn't want to step on the moon dew splattering the floor. Moon dew caused hypothermia and—and lunacy…

Luna froze, staring at her mother who carelessly threw in an eel eye into the cauldron without chopping it first into pieces. Even at age nine, she knew that breathing in moon dew would cause near-permanent damage to the brain, splitting the skull in half, dividing them between the veil world and the real world. And here was the moon dew, splattered on the floor since the last time she'd been down here. She breathed hard, reeling back in her memories. When was the last time she had been down here? It couldn't have been that long ago, only a few days, perhaps a few weeks. Nothing too horribly long, she hoped. But…the last time had been the vanishing legs potion, hadn't it? Hadn't she avoided the basement for a while?

She couldn't shake the feeling that the moon dew wasn't the only problem, though. Something more was causing Pandora's lunacy, more than the moon dew. It was only a small step. Moon dew had to be consistently breathed in for many years before its effects took place unless it was directly consumed. In that case, moon dew would be highly effective in causing madness immediately. And Pandora had been intermittently off her rocker since…since when?

Luna jerked a leg forward, ignoring the pains in her thigh and the bits of moon dew collecting on her shoe. _A hypothesis…I need to create a hypothesis_. That would be the only solution to resolving the madness. The madness, oh what a wonderful thing it would be if she could find the cause of Pandora's strangeness and eliminate it. But where was it? Where was the root of the lunacy?

Pandora tapped the cauldron's side one, twice before plopping a stirrer into the cauldron and mixing the brew. Luna blinked. Hadn't her father done something similar? But he wasn't quite insane, not really, just a poor man who couldn't think of better titles to tell its readers that he cared about reporting or magical media. Not really. Where else would Luna find solace? Her mother was always working, always working down in the basement trying to find the perfect combination to Wolfsbane Potion, and her father was always working, always working upstairs trying to find the right readers. And there she was, caught in the middle between a loving but half-crazy mother and a father who didn't really connect with her.

But Luna knew the tapping was important. Where did it come from?

"Mum," she said croakily. "Why did you tap the cauldron's side?"

Pandora smiled dreamily at her daughter. "Tapping keeps the Nargles away."

"Nargles?"

"Nargles, darling. They float around your ear and make your brain go fuzzy."

Luna stared, wondering if she should be gaping in disbelief. Nargles? What were Nargles? She'd never heard of such creatures until now, and she'd already read all existing books on the subject of magizoology.

For a moment, Luna was unsure of her next step. Would she move forward to her mother and try to 'restart' her? Or go back towards her father, make a cup of nice, warm Comed tea to bring down again, and forget about this whole lunacy with a good laugh? After tea, her mother always seemed to calm down, just enough to resume her work without muttering strange comments. Strongly, Luna felt the urge to do just that. But, it was practical, yes, wasn't it? To resolve her mother's problem here and now, to fix her until she didn't stay down here all the time with the toxic moon dew and an unknown variable bringing out the madness.

Again she moved forward, stepping on the fine asphodel powder mixing with moon dew. Asphodel…not quite strong enough to cause a reaction with the moon dew. Too light and too fine to properly combust or collide with a human's mind.

What would?

Luna quickly ran through the list: Serpent's blood, erumpent tail, dragon liver, lacewing fly, octopus powder—

Weren't all these ingredients composed of animal parts? And her mother, she was human, if she had touched the moon dew and had mixed it with her blood by accident even once, she would find the madness coming on and off, the infected blood rushing to her brain every few hours in a cycle. And her father, who may or may not have been infected, would have kissed his wife and become mad but only slightly, enough to appear sane. It made sense, and for once Luna didn't know how to solve the problem.

"Mum, have you ever cut yourself down here? Even by accident?" she asked, so close now that if she wanted she could reach out a hand and set it on her mum's shoulders. But she didn't, not wanting to fill herself with the infection and dive into the madness.

"Of course darling!" Pandora laughed gleefully with hands full of moon dew vials. "Of course I have! I'm a potions master darling. And," her voice lowered to a whisper. "I have to see what happens on the Other Side."

"The Other Side?" Luna said, so quietly that her voice was nearly carried away by the hum-dum of the potion's frothing.

"The Other Side of the Veil, my Luna. That's where you'll find all things lost to us, that's where I'll find the solution to my Wolfsbane Potion! What's lost in a werewolf, even for a moment, is its humanity. And we can only retrieve it by delving into the world beyond our senses."

Pandora leaned against her daughter, resting her head on Luna's shoulders. Her hands clutched Luna's robes, grasping them tightly in a squeezing, desperate embrace. Luna, surprised, didn't move, even when the strange clear liquid dripped onto her shoes, mingling them with the moon dew and asphodel.

"My Luna, my Luna," Pandora murmured. "There's so much you must learn still. The Other Side is waiting for you."

And without looking, she scooped up the moon dew, asphodel, and clear liquid from Luna's shoe and poured it into the frothing blue potion.

It exploded.

"The sky has lost a star."


	2. Chapter 2

It would have been lucky, Luna presumed later, if she had died in the accident. The pain would have become non-existent, would have torn down her shades and let her see what was there, would have let her been with her mum just for one more precious second—but it consumed her, eating her flesh, ripping out her long strands of blonde-white hair, tearing at her insides to push outwards in bloody coils—

She screamed. Murder was in her home.

Luna collapsed onto the floor, fingers grasping at the moon dew and asphodel, unknowingly adding to the blue froth emitting from the cauldron which kept on growing larger and larger in size, reeling Luna in with its insanity and drawing her closer to the breathing noises. It kept growing from the froth, from the moon dew mixing with the asphodel and potion, a mess of steam rising from the floor from where the fire had toppled, grating against the stone to combust more and collide with the table legs holding the ingredients which then fell onto the ground and shattered vials of glass and yellow, red, blue liquids, eyeballs dropping onto the floor coated with lacewing fly dung that blew puffs of brown in smaller clouds to mingle with the _moon dew and Wolfsbane potion_…

Reaching out a shaking hand covered in her blood and blue, Luna's fingers brushed against the cauldron. She had already lost feeling in her hand, and she watched her fingers turn a blistering red then brown then black from the burn. But she couldn't feel it, and so she lunged once more towards the cauldron and set it upright, easing the magical collisions between the moon dew, potion and blood. Smoke still rose from the floor, oddly shifting colors in rapid order, and the fire, though small, still burned. Luna coughed once, twice, before struggling to lift herself up to the nearest water pump, halfway across the room and nearly impossible to reach.

Impossible was an understatement.

Luna blinked. She was surrounded by a daze of color, whirling around her in spirals of red and gold before whistling into silver and blue, waltzing around her with flickering lights and plant-like twists curling out to touch her hand. Beyond the spirals she saw nothing, not the edge of the table, not the cauldron she had just picked up, not the water pump she needed to get to put out the fire she could no longer see. She flinched as the coil of color came nearer, but it simply brushed against her burn and turned it back to flesh. _That's…impossible._ To turn something dead back to life again, even if had still been attached to her, it was impossible, wasn't it? The Five Properties ruled against that sort of magic.

She gazed up at the whirlwind surrounding her body. Where was she? Was she still in her home, the Lovegood tower, surrounded by her mum and dad? Or had she been transported away, far away, to another place where she was confined to a circle of three meters in diameter? The circle, it breathed in and out, in and out with a choking noise as though its lungs (if it had lungs) had been filled with water and damped so it couldn't breathe. Luna realized this was the breathing she had heard earlier, and looked up to squint at the edges of the circle. There seemed to be no end from the top, and so she looked down, seeing only the edges that blurred whenever she squeezed her eyes closer to see them.

"Mum?" she whispered, clutching her now-healed hand at her chest. She was barely nine, she didn't want to be alone in this strange, new world. She couldn't handle herself, not here, not alone, not with the odd colors that seemed to peer inwardly at her and see not just her ragtag self with blood-messed silver hair and torn robes that squelched out blue but her inner most thoughts, raging against the logic that stood in its way to replace it with mysterious beings that swooped into her vision before flickering out again. There was the monster with purple pointed ears that shook its claws at her and the cackling great winged monster that leaned in so close to her ear to nip at it.

"Stop it!" Luna cried out as one of the monsters came in closer. "Stop it, stop it, STOP!"

She was hit over the head by the monster, and, dizzyingly, she fell backwards unconscious.


	3. Chapter 3

"Luna? My Luna?"

Luna opened her eyes blearily to her dad's worried face. His forehead was wrinkled, crinkling in the middle. His mouth widened, a slight shift to the right to form a lopsided smile, and his eyes curved at the sides forming semi-circles within his circular glasses rims. His hand brushed gently against her silvery-white hair, circling his finger round and round to wrap the strands in a tight little bundle.

Luna, however, didn't take note of any of this. She was too busy staring open-mouthed at the baby flying dragon next to her father, ignoring even the tiniest bit of spittle dropping from her mouth. Its pointy ears stiffened and its nose sharply turned in her direction, gazing at her with wide, chocolate colored eyes. Luna squeaked in surprise, letting loose a high-pitched noise she didn't know she could make.

"Luna?" Xenophilius said. He glanced at where she was staring, eyes passing over the dragon.

"Dad, get away from there," she gasped, wrenching away from her father. "There's a dragon." She pointed to the _thing _that was now dancing on top of Xenophilius's head, blatantly flaunting his thin, spindly wings at her. The dragon's greenish-brownish mouth wiggled at her in a taunt. Luna felt her blood rise at this stupid act of mockery.

Xenophilius frowned, an eyebrow rising in disbelief. He looked at where his daughter was staring but his eyes passed over where the dragon was before.

"It moved to on top of your head."

Luna carefully pointed a finger at the dragon who perked up at the sight. It scuttled on top of Xenophilius's towards Luna's direction, crawling closer with its sharp nails.

"Eek!"

She scrambled backwards as the tiny dragon leapt from her father's head onto her bed sheets. Its nails dug into the cloth, leaving just the tiniest bit of tears. Her legs jerked awkwardly, hitting the bed frame—she would regret not looking at that earlier—but twisted back just in time to avoid the snappy little lizard's dagger-like teeth.

"Luna!"

Luna froze. Xenophilius was staring at her with a curious look.

"There's a…a thing."

Her dad squinted his eyes at her, then at where she was looking. Luna's eyes crinkled as she realized Xenophilius's eyes traveled to and fro from where the dragon originally was and her, skipping—skipping over the fanged beast. Her heart jumped at that.

"You can't see it." It was a whisper, a strange kind of whisper where Luna's voice floated breezily into the air but still managed to sound hurt. "Am I dead? Do you see me?" She waved in front of her father's face, scooting as close as she could before the barrier named puny beast barricaded her path.

Xenophilius's mouth twitched but his eyes kept moving back and forth between the two spots. Hesitantly he reached out a hand and flapped his fingers, wriggling them in the air. His mouth tugged downward slightly but moved his hand, still wriggling. It went further down and down, closer and closer to the beast, until it stopped inches away from the opening of the monster's mouth. Luna watched the tiny figure breathe in and out slowly, emitting loose puffs of air that Xenophilius didn't seem to feel. Then—

"Bloody hell!"

A shrill sound shot through the air as the dragon blew fire out of its mouth, steam whistling as it shot out of the creature's mouth at high speed. Xenophilius jerked back in shock, the other hand clutching the other in pain. Luna grabbed the dragon's mouth, hooking her finger around to drag it backwards, and wrenched it away from her father.

Then she wondered how she had done that with the fire still spewing out of its mouth.

Slowly she unclenched her hand and stared at the blemish-less skin. It still itched underneath the skin, worming its way to the rest of her hand as though it was molasses, but she couldn't notice anything externally wrong with her hand.

She looked up to find Xenophilius clutching his own hand—_and it was red_. Not only a slight tinge of red, it was scarlet, clearly burning away at his hand as she found her father attempting to avoid whining out in pain.

"Let me see that."

"Wait." Xenophilius looked his hand and to the spot where he had been burned. "Is there a really a creature in here?"

For a moment, Luna was struck between two phases. On one hand, she could completely deny that she was seeing little monsters that sprouted wings and fire and therefore avoid what she was now predicting to be a very long, very awkward conversation with her father. On the other hand, she could accept that she was seeing and feeling things much differently from her father, including a moronic piece of skin and bones that kept on flapping its wings frantically beside her as it tried to edge away from Xenophilius, and ensure she was in the right state of mind.

"Yes."

Luna pointedly ignored the pitiful creature bumping its head repeatedly into her arm.

A few seconds. Then—

"What."

It was a calmer reaction than Luna had been expecting. Xenophilius was known for flinging his arms back and forth, shattering vials of her mum's potions left and right. He was known for musing to himself with hymns and lullabies at all hours, wandering around with strange notions of the neighbors and Muggles that lived a stretch of road away. And the rumors he made up, they were fanciful, barely there in evidence, written out by the mysterious Rule of Three—

Rule of Three. She made one, he made two, where was…three?

Her mum. Where was she?

Had she forgotten so quickly? In her hurry to understand the things that were…in front of her? The swirling mass of colors, the yellow, the silver, the blue, did it matter which way she was going, the twisting and turning inside the circular cage she had been kept in with those monsters, those monsters with their pointed ears and evil cackling that echoed in her faint memory?

She glanced down at the creature whining against her, panting from the frustrated whimpers as it nudged hard against her kneecaps. She hadn't seen these creatures before that strange mixture of light, hadn't seen the—oh, what was the darn thing called again?

"You see the Other Side."

It was a statement, a quiet one made unlike the any other her father had ever told her before.

Luna stared at the aged wrinkles in Xenophilius's face. They seemed to understand what she was feeling, odd confusion and anger that her mum hadn't sent her off with a calmer message. "How'd you know?"

"I heard the screaming right before Pandora passed through the Veil."

He reached out for Luna's hand, rubbing it lovingly. His eyes looked downcast.

"But…can't you see it too?"

Xenophilius kept drawing circles into Luna's arm, silent.

"So you can't see this thing that's eating my arm."

Xenophilius yelped and stumbled backwards. "What THING?"

Luna smiled, the type of slow smile that hid her thoughts from everyone but her. The creature nuzzled against her leg, comfortable and warm. What a strange thing, she thought. A Blibbering Humdinger.


End file.
